Fundamental Biological Features of Spaceflight: Advancing the Field to Enable Deep-Space Exploration

Ebrahim Afshinnekoo; Ryan T Scott; Matthew J MacKay; Eloise Pariset; Egle Cekanaviciute; Richard Barker; Simon Gilroy; Duane Hassane; Scott M Smith; Sara R Zwart; Mayra Nelman-Gonzalez; Brian E Crucian; Sergey A Ponomarev; Oleg I Orlov; Dai Shiba; Masafumi Muratani; Masayuki Yamamoto; Stephanie E Richards; Parag A Vaishampayan; Cem Meydan; Jonathan Foox; Jacqueline Myrrhe; Eric Istasse; Nitin Singh; Kasthuri Venkateswaran; Jessica A Keune; Hami E Ray; Mathias Basner; Jack Miller; Martha Hotz Vitaterna; Deanne M Taylor; Douglas Wallace; Kathleen Rubins; Susan M Bailey; Peter Grabham; Sylvain V Costes; Christopher E Mason; Afshin Beheshti

doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.10.050

Fundamental Biological Features of Spaceflight: Advancing the Field to Enable Deep-Space Exploration

Cell. 2020 Nov 25;183(5):1162-1184. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.10.050.

Authors

Ebrahim Afshinnekoo¹, Ryan T Scott², Matthew J MacKay¹, Eloise Pariset³, Egle Cekanaviciute⁴, Richard Barker⁵, Simon Gilroy⁵, Duane Hassane⁶, Scott M Smith⁷, Sara R Zwart⁸, Mayra Nelman-Gonzalez⁹, Brian E Crucian⁷, Sergey A Ponomarev¹⁰, Oleg I Orlov¹⁰, Dai Shiba¹¹, Masafumi Muratani¹², Masayuki Yamamoto¹³, Stephanie E Richards¹⁴, Parag A Vaishampayan⁴, Cem Meydan¹, Jonathan Foox¹, Jacqueline Myrrhe¹⁵, Eric Istasse¹⁵, Nitin Singh¹⁶, Kasthuri Venkateswaran¹⁶, Jessica A Keune¹⁷, Hami E Ray¹⁸, Mathias Basner¹⁹, Jack Miller²⁰, Martha Hotz Vitaterna²¹, Deanne M Taylor²², Douglas Wallace²³, Kathleen Rubins²⁴, Susan M Bailey²⁵, Peter Grabham²⁶, Sylvain V Costes²⁷, Christopher E Mason²⁸, Afshin Beheshti²⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10021, USA; The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10021, USA; WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10021, USA.
² KBR, Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
³ Universities Space Research Association (USRA), Mountain View, CA 94043, USA; Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
⁴ Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
⁵ Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
⁶ Tempus Labs, Inc., Chicago, IL 60654, USA.
⁷ Human Health and Performance Directorate, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
⁸ Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA.
⁹ KBR, Human Health and Performance Directorate, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
¹⁰ Institute for the Biomedical Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, 123007 Moscow, Russia.
¹¹ JEM Utilization Center, Human Spaceflight Technology Directorate, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Ibaraki 305-8505, Japan.
¹² Transborder Medical Research Center, and Department of Genome Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8575, Japan.
¹³ Department of Medical Biochemistry, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8575, Japan; Department of Integrative Genomics, Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8573, Japan.
¹⁴ Bionetics, NASA Kennedy Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, FL 32899, USA.
¹⁵ European Space Agency, Research and Payloads Group, Data Exploitation and Utilisation Strategy Office, 2200 AG Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
¹⁶ Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
¹⁷ Space Medicine Operations Division, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
¹⁸ ASRC Federal Space and Defense, Inc., Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
²⁰ KBR, Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
²¹ Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA; Department of Neurobiology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
²² Department of Biomedical Informatics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; The Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
²³ Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; The Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
²⁴ Astronaut Office, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
²⁵ Department of Environmental & Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA. Electronic address: susan.bailey@colostate.edu.
²⁶ Center for Radiological Research, Department of Oncology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. Electronic address: pwg2@cumc.columbia.edu.
²⁷ Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA. Electronic address: sylvain.v.costes@nasa.gov.
²⁸ Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10021, USA; The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10021, USA; WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10021, USA; The Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, NY 10021, USA. Electronic address: chm2042@med.cornell.edu.
²⁹ KBR, Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. Electronic address: afshin.beheshti@nasa.gov.

Abstract

Research on astronaut health and model organisms have revealed six features of spaceflight biology that guide our current understanding of fundamental molecular changes that occur during space travel. The features include oxidative stress, DNA damage, mitochondrial dysregulation, epigenetic changes (including gene regulation), telomere length alterations, and microbiome shifts. Here we review the known hazards of human spaceflight, how spaceflight affects living systems through these six fundamental features, and the associated health risks of space exploration. We also discuss the essential issues related to the health and safety of astronauts involved in future missions, especially planned long-duration and Martian missions.

Keywords: DNA damage; aerospace medicine; epigenetic; microbiome; mitochondria; multi-omics; oxidative stress; space biology; spaceflight; telomere.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Review

MeSH terms

Astronauts
Extraterrestrial Environment*
Health
Humans
Microbiota
Risk Factors
Space Flight*

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding